News and views about the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 and other legislation, schemes and policies impacting the Right to Education of India's Children.

Last year, the ministry had invited applications from the private sector
for the construction of 459 schools. According to the model, the
government will fund the students it sponsors while the private sector
players will acquire land, construct infrastructure and appoint staff
and select students. The schools will have to admit 40% of the students
from under-privileged sections of the society and the Centre will pay
their schooling costs.

The schools are meanwhile allowed to fix the fee for the remaining 60%
students, but cannot admit more than 1,500 such students according to
the plan. The Central government will reimburse close to Rs.22,000
annually for each sponsored student. This reimbursement would annually
increase by 5%.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced the initiative to set up
6,000 model schools, one in each block, in his Independence Day address
in 2007. The schools will be named Rashtriya Adarsh Vidyalaya and are to
be affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

“The whole idea is that the government would spend what it would have
otherwise spent on them in a public school. The same school can charge
different fee for other students. The whole idea is that if you have to
attract students for private schools, you have to maintain standard. In
that case, other students will also benefit”, Montek Singh Ahluwalia,
Deputy Chairman of Planning commission, had earlier told Business
Standard.

“The government will be paying from the existing budget and has not made
any special separate budget for the same. We are not paying for the
capital payment”, Ahluwalia added.

Last week, The Annual status of Education report (ASER), published by
Delhi based NGO, Pratham had said that the quality of school children in
the country remains poor despite major push from the government to
improve education in the country. According to another report last year,
states such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Jharkhand continue to
have poor school infrastructure and enrolment in the primary school
level.

“At the all India level, for standard III, the proportion of children
able to read at least a Std I level text has risen slightly from 38.8%
in 2012 to 40.2% in 2013 and is driven by improvements among private
school children. The proportion of children in Std. V who can read a
Std. II level text remains the same since 2012 at 47%”, the ASER survey
said.

India’s education sector has been widely criticized for the lack of
imparting quality education and the HRD ministry has been looking at
means including the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to improve quality of learning
in schools.